Wednesday, October 6, 2010

20101006

JESUS CHRIST is our Exemplar:Our Path and our Destiny.He is the Second Personof the one Triune Perfection -The true and everliving God -Most to be adoredYet so little knownBy needful men.

He is the Eternal Word of God,Beloved Son of the Father,Eternally begotten, not made;True God from True God,Infinite Truth from Infinite Truth -One with the Father and the Holy Spirit -Through Him all things came to be,The Splendor of all living creation,The Light of the human race.

And this Light shines in the darknessand the darkness has not overcome it.

Though immortal and invulnerableout of love for suffering mankindHe went down from heaventhrough the obedience of our Ladyand the love in her Immaculate Heart.He was conceived by the Holy Spiritand was born of the Virgin Mary.He is True God and True Man.In His Sacred Humanity,He is True Man,like us in every mannersave for sin.In His Eternal Divinity,He is True God,unlike us in all truthsave for grace.

He constantly yearned over usliving in solidarity with sinners.He lived to serve the least of mendesiring that all men be saved.He lived and walked among usexamining our hearts and our ways.He called each of us by our nameand made Himself available to all.He called us to live a life of repentance,to worship God in spirit and in truth;and he gave our hearts, our hope -and he gave our hopes, His Heart -with the courage to overcomethe darkness within ourselves.

By our common Christian baptism:He rekindled in our heartsThe sanctifying fire of Divine Love.And called us out of this worldto belong forever with Himas one Covenant family of God.

He illumined the darkness of our mindsby the Light of His own perfect human life.And taught us His timeless counsels -to be meek, humble, and contrite,to be chaste, holy and upright,to be like God, our Father in heaven,giving us His new commandment of loveby which heaven and earth shall knowthat we are His disciples.

He grieved much for our sakesand prayed assiduously for us.He lovingly offered for usHis own Body and Bloodand instituted for usOur common Eucharistic mealthat would feed our souls,as our new manna from heaven,and sustain us for the journeyacross the void of exile timethrough the bitter portal of our deathinto the promised Kingdom of God,Our one, true Country.

His Peace is a promisethat He will be with us for always -His Light will see us through this darkness,His Truth being both our Path and our Destiny,and His Love will not let us perish in the end.For His Peace is a promise indeed -that He will see us through to better days -into a place without war and tears,into a better world without sin and suffering,into a time of everlasting life and of joyous peacelived in the timeless embrace of the vision of our God.

He sent us His Holy Spiritto guide and to fortify,to serve and to strengthen,to shape and to sanctify,and protect from the gates of hellHis Militant Church on earth.And illumine for all of us the wayalong the hard and narrow road,up the difficult, high mountain pathof universal truth and Christian virtue.

He lived for the truth,He spoke nothing but the truth,He is nothing but the truth,and died instead of mouthing the liethat would deny Him His Divinity.

He became vulnerableto suffer with our sufferingand embrace our human conditiongiving true meaning to our living.He became mortalto die with our deathand transform our fallen naturegiving true meaning to our dying.He was betrayed and abandoned by His friends,and suffered under Pontius Pilate.He was rejected, slapped, spat at, mocked and scourged,punched, tortured, crowned with thorns and beaten with reeds.He was made an object of contemptand though innocentwas treated more guilty than a murderer.He was unjustly condemned to diea horrible and ignominious,slow and lingering death by crucifixion.He was made to carry His heavy, wooden Crossand amidst a jeering, shouting crowdwas dragged violently through the streets of Jerusalem.He was stripped naked and was nailed to the wood of His Cross.He was raised up and made to hang in unthinkable agony,upon that lonely mount of Calvary;an object of scorn and ridicule to His own creatures,suspended between heaven and earthlike a bridge between the world of God and the world of men.His Sacred Humanity, bloodied and bruised beyond recognition,He did reveal to us the depth of his hunger for us.He did thirst for our love.He wept out of sheer lonelinessand looked down in sorrowupon the grieving faces of His Mother, Mary,and his beloved disciple, Saint John.Out of love for His Motherand out of mercy for us,He entrusted us to Maryand Mary to us through Saint Johnat the foot of His Cross.

His most loving and Sacred Heart,a most loving Heart that has loved us so muchyet in return is loved so little,was emptied out for us.He bore for all mankind the terrible wrathgathered up for all our sins past, present and future.He bled His Sacred Blood in profuse torrentsto wash away all our iniquitiesuntil finallyHe cried out in abject griefand utter desolationto His Father in Heaven,commended to God, His Spiritand died of a broken Heart.

His broken Heart was then piercedwith a lanceand It flowed with the water and the bloodthat sealed forever the new and everlasting Covenantbetween God and man.It is said that our Holy Mother Church,as Christ's new Covenant people,sprang from His wounded side.

Our Blessed Lord gave to us the gift of Himselfout of His perfect obedienceto the tender merciesof the Father of all mercyand His infinite love for us,miserable and wretched sinners that we are,until He was so completelyand utterly spentthat even though He was Godand He is Godand God being infinitely richand powerful beyond measure,as Saint Augustine said -He gave until He had nothing left to give.

Indeed, He loved us all without exceptionand cherished us each without measureright to the bitter end.He forgave His tormentorsfor He loved both His enemiesas well as His friends.

In so doing, our Blessed Lordand Holy Redeemercompletely transformedour common heritageby His life, Passion, death and Resurrectionfrom one of everlasting deathinto one of resurrection unto everlasting life.

Glory to God in the highest!Peace to all men of goodwill -Adoration to Jesus Christ -Our Beloved Lord and Omnipotent God;Our Blessed Savior and Loyal Friend;Our Divine Master and Celestial King;Our Eldest Brother and Faithful Helper;Our Light and our Truth;Our Resurrection and Life;Our one true Shepherd,Our Pledge of Victory;Our Prince of Peace;Our Hope Everlasting;Our Eternal Daystar;The True Morning Star;The First of our First MagnitudesOur Everything and our All.

He is Jesus Christ, our Exemplar:Our Path and our Destiny -True God and True Man,Son of God and Son of Mary.

And this I most solemnly confessas most sincerely mine own,with all the Christian truthsof my Roman Catholic Faith,in silence and in words,alone or with others,in thought and in deed,in time and in eternityby the blessedand thrice-holy Nameof the one, great Triune Perfection:The Father,The Son,and the Holy Spirit -One God and LORD forever!---<--@

MabuhayangPilipinas! God bless us all.God is not a product of religion. Religion is a response to the Divine Reality.While all men are called to faith, faith is not a choice begun by any man. Faith is a choice begun by God of all men. And as thus is a surrender to the calling by which all men participate in the Divine will.Unity is an aspect of the liberty of nations.The separation between Church and State is not a separation between God and human reality.

Prayer to God as First Defender of the Republic

Look upon us this moment,O LORD, God above all things,and abide with us nowin our necessary struggleas First Defender of this Republicto obtain for our peoplethe remembrance of Thy peaceand the blessings of Thy freedom.

Bless our one Filipino nation,O LORD and Giver of all good things,each and every Filipino heart,that yet believes with convictionin this endeavor of Countrythat we may by our own willingnessbe transformed by Thy abundant mercy.

Tarry with us in the darknessO LORD and Sovereign of all nationshelp us, teach us, bless usthat we may prosper in Thy sightand in Thy grace and in Thy counselsremain secure in Thy commandmentswalking upright in Thy waysthat we may become the lightthat You want this nationand every nation to beupon this, our midnight world,so much in need of Thy presencelike the daybreak twilight isso much in need of Thee.

For us, Christians, we must add:

This we humbly implorein the Name of Jesus Christ,our most loving Lord and Savior,

AMEN.---<--@

For all the rest:

This we humbly implore,O LORD and one common Creatorof all things, seen and unseen,